Masakali — Restaurant in Reading

Right at the front, there was a live chaat station that had a waitress who made you fresh Indian street snacks: pani puri and aloo tikki chaat. You say what you want, and she'll make it and bring it to your table. The aloo tikki chaat was pretty good, but it seemed like the pani puri was a bit more controversial: I preferred the yellow one over the green one.

Next to that was a wide-ranging starter section. The pav bhaji was surprisingly good, flavourful potato curry on top of warm buttered buns. The vegetable spring rolls and samosas were okay. They had fries and chicken nuggets for the kids.

Next were the vegetable starters, and I liked them all. The gobi majestic was pretty tasty, battered and fried pieces of cauliflower. The paneer tikka (grilled cottage cheese) was firm and flavoursome, and the aloo bhaji (fried potato discs) was indeed crispy as the sign suggested.

The meat starters were my favourite, and it seemed like the favourite of many others too, as the chilli chicken was out and refreshed constantly. The coriander chilli chicken was a sweet and spicy Indo-Chinese dish that was perfect with some rice or naan. The chicken tikka was surprisingly juicy and well flavoured, possibly using thigh pieces. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy the lamb chops, the texture tasted mushy - maybe overmarinaded in yoghurt or something, which was disappointing given lamb chops were probably the highest value product at a buffet but I didn't want any more.

The curry section started with the vegetarian section. I only tried a bit of each but they were all pretty well-spiced, the unlabelled one was particularly interesting dish with green beans and coconut - poriyal?

There were 3 meat curries available: a chicken korma that was pretty good, a mutton curry that was richer, and a coconut fish curry that was fantastic - large pieces of flaky basa fillets, stewing in a fragrant coconut curry.

Lastly there were some daal, sambar, and Hakka noodles.

Indian food is actually great for buffets, as the curries benefit from sitting in hotplates for a long time and only get more flavoursome. This is in contrast to Chinese food which often needs to be flash fried and lose its texture at a buffet. Curries also go well with carbs like rice and naan which are very filling, a bonus for the restaurant. Here they had plain rice, some vegetable biryani, and a chicken biryani, with some raita on the side. You can also order a choice of naan (plain, butter, or garlic) or roti (plan or butter) and they'll deliver it to your table as part of the buffet price. Our garlic naan was hot and fresh out of the tandoor, brushed with butter and speckled with garlic and coriander.

Finally there was a small dessert station at the end, with a vat of warm gulab jamun and another vat of gajar halwa. The gulab jamun was okay, but the gajar halwa was a crowd pleaser and everyone loved it, a carroty pudding sweetened with condensed milk. After we paid the bill, a waitress asked if we wanted any ice cream as part of the buffet price, but it was only vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry so we declined.

Overall I had a great meal at Masakali and I think £18 + 10% service + drinks is well worth a try. Normally at a buffet you expect to get quantity and variety over quality, but here I actually think the quality is pretty decent. My favourites were the chilli chicken, chicken tikka, coconut fish curry, and gajar halwa, and I kept going back for more. There are not many buffets in Reading, and I think at £18 pp it compares well to Cosmo at £23 and AKA BBQ Station at £33, although obviously each have its own cuisine and input costs. They also do a £15 lunch menu, but unless I was very full I'd be happy to pay an extra £3 and try out more food. Hope it sticks around and gets more people to try out Indian...

Bit of a late detailed review, came here with my mum in March 2024.

Upon entering the completely empty restaurant we were ask by the attendant/manager? if we have a reservation (we did not). All it took to get us seated was a sarcastic glance at the empty sitting area.

After we sat down we asked the waitress about the happy hour discount that was plastered all over the entrance of the restaurant. She said that they definitely will apply 20%? discount for us on our bill as we are dining in within that happy hour time (remember this for what comes up later).

We placed an order for kebabs and a red curry of which i cant remember the name of. We waited and waited and waited, and we were served like 3-4 kebabs in a plate that was decently expensive…okayyy atleast they taste decent and we are hungry.

Then we were served with the main dish, the red curry…..its just curry, in a bowl of curry its literally just curry with no meat in it, oh wait there are about maybe 5 tiny cubes of meat in the whole bowl?

We decided to not judge it before eating, which was clearly a mistake cause that red curry was not good to eat, nothing horrible, but for its price id rather go to a cheap roadside shop and order enough for 4 people.

We decided to order more kebabs with naan to fill our stomach at-least, the kebabs were served..but we waited and waited and waited for the naan and it was served precisely the moment the kebabs went cold. Ugh.

And now comes the worst part!

After finishing our dish and deep into conversation about how bad the experience was, the bill is brought to us, ofcourse it has a optional service fee already included on it without me asking to tip this sort of service, so I go an extra step to ask them to kindly remove the service tip as its not earned (i wanted to ask for a refund but oh well that wont happen) and we pay the full price of the food.

We get up and step out of the restaurant and after walking for 1 min my mum goes “THE HAPPY HOUR DISCOUNT! THEY DIDN’T GIVE US OUR HAPPY OUR DISCOUNT!”

Furious me and mum ran back to the restaurant, as soon as we enter our eyes immediately lock in with both our first attendant/manager? and the waitress who served us. With them having a guilty smile on there face and there mouths uttering “we were about to give you the 20% off but you went out”.

EXCUSE ME?

NO, YOU gave us a bill. We didnt sneak out, we sat, we ate, we paid the bill YOU brought us, and we left in front of you.

Now this is either a way of taking advantage of a customer or probably the most forgetful staff in the world. Im placing my vote on the former.

Atleast they rushed and handed us the overpaid amount in cash immediately.

No words were exchanged after that as we were taken aback and wanted to storm out of this horrible place immediately.

Yes so in short, I’d rather drive 30 min outside of reading if there are no food options left than to try and even step within the radius of this horribly managed “restaurant”.

0...

If only I could give 0 stars.

Me and my husband went for a buffet lunch few weeks back. My husband was not so keen as there is another restaurant in the town and we usually go there for buffet and it's the best one so far. Never dissappointed us, but I convinced him to try this new place "Masakali" as it would be good to have more options. HUGE MISTAKE on my part.

When we entered the restaurant, it was almost empty which is strange considering it's a weekend plus the buffet offer. We thought it's ok as long as the food is good we don't care about anything else. We went to the food area to get food and that area was really small. There were hardly any options in Starters, mains and desserts. Everything was absolutely cold and stale. Most of the things were double/triple fried and hence extremely oily or reheated. There was a chaat corner and when I went for the first serving there was this lady helping out and when I went for a second serving noone was there. I was told to help myself. Mains were really bad and tasteless. Desserts were some store bought sweets and a low quality icecream. I couldn't finish anything at all on my plate because nothing tasted edible and I felt really horrible wasting food. Not even one option on that buffet was even remotely edible.

Everything was really low-effort and so unprofessionally managed. We also ordered a mango lassi. When the bill arrived they forgot to add the Mango Lassi in the bill. We paid the bill as we thought Mango Lassi was included in the bill and just when we were about to leave they said we forgot to add the Mango lassi in the bill so they gave us a seperate bill which is still fine as we should have also checked the bill earlier but the annoying part was they charged us Service tax twice - on the earlier bill and this one. We let them know that this is not fair and they said we will take it out. Why can't these things be taken care of in the first place.

Price that they have charged for the buffet is ridiculous for the quality of food they are serving. If you want to pay the same money and also get the worth on quality and quantity, please go to "House of Flavours" in the town center. You would not be dissappointed for sure. If they really want to compete and survive in this town, they drastically need to improve the quality of food and also work on their prices.

I would definitely not...